Toni Sola of Tortilla con Salis actively supporting the thousands of Hondurans who are sneaking past the military blockade (and an 18 hour curfew) to support their elected President, 'Mel' Zelaya, who is challenging the de-facto government to let him re-enter his country. Hundreds of thousands of Honduran people have maintained a rage against the coup. The level of popular support for the illegally 'exiled' President has taken all by surprise, including the international community, and the people of Nicaragua. Suddenly over four thousand supporters for Zelaya have poured over the border. With the psychologically unsound levels of military repression occurring within Honduras, they have become not only 'protestors' but also refugees. A moot point over how they will be defined in the mainstream media. (apologies for the poor sound quality of the interview taken under difficult conditions).

Observer 'Toni' Sola headed up to 'Las Manos', border town between Nicaragua and Honduras where there is a a standoff between President Zelaya (elected President of Honduras) and the 'goons' of the golpistas (the 'coup controllers' who shot down his front door and put him on a plane to Costa Rica).

More to come on the background of the coup, but interesting is Toni's encounter with the 'mainstream media' where this standoff was happening.

Toni Sola of Tortilla con Sal travelled to Las Manos with the entourage of President Zelaya when the President made an attempt to reenter Honduras from the Nicaraguan border. He was hugely impressed with the numbers of Honduran supporters of President 'Mel' Zelaya, and the efforts they made to be at the border to greet him, in defiance of a militatry bockade. Many crossed over to the Nicaraguan side of the border where it looks as though a protest 'Peace Camp' is in the process of being established.

Toni Sola - Tortilla con Sal -telling us what it was like to be at the border between Honduras and Nicaragua while President 'Mel' Zelaya attempts to reenter his country agaisnt the wishes of the military regime that expelled him during the coup of June 28. It is a waiting game, with Zelaya supporters shutting the country down until he is reinstalled as President, while the military tries to destroy the will of the people and the popular resistance through increasing repression and militarization. Toni talks about the latest casualties of the latest wave of repression.

Grahame Russel, human rights lawyer and spokesperson for Rights Action is in Honduras updating us regularly on the process of the coup there. He talks about the massive outpouring of popular support for the legitimate President 'Mel' Zelaya and the belief among the mass of the people that his return is critical to the future of Honduras. Police who tried to occupy the exiled President's home were forced to withdraw when confronted with a mobilisation of people.

Alexis, spokesperson for CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) tells us the story of Marcelo Rivera, a community activist who led the movement to stop Pacific Rim mining company from despoiling the countryside near a number of peasant communities in El Salvador. The manner of his death suggest involvement of elements of the ARENA party, and the local police strangely reluctant to investigate the circumstances of his disappearance and murder.

Grahame Russel, human rights lawyer is in Honduras getting the real story out. The military coup, backed by the oligarchy and elite business community, has been universally condemned, but unlike Tehran the huge houtpouring of popular repudiation of the coup masters and the military, doesn't seem to be making the headlines in mainstream media.

Grahame was present last Sunday when the President of Honduras tried to fly in to return to his country after being bundled out of his residence last week by the military and put on a flight to Costa Rica. Somewhere between one hundred thousand and two hudnred thousand demonstrators turned up at the airport to see the Presidential plane land. Two were shot by the military and another four wounded. After the military placed trucks on the runway and fired shots at the plane after a low pass over the runway the landing was aborted.

He will try again on Wednesday (Thursday Australian time). The Honduran people are mobilised, the biggest outpouring of popular power in this country since the 1950s. Honduras is diplomatically isolated, although the US is slow to take decisive action.

Toni covers the Honduran coup. He was there, invited as an international observer, by the Honduran government, to be an observer to a constitutionally legal poll as to whether the Honduran people wanted to have a body to study constitutional reform included in the elections of next November. The results of this study would later be put to a popular referendum.

Contrary to mistaken references in the anglo/western media that the coup was triggered by fears that he was seeking extra time in the Presidency, Zelaya was not seeking this, and had not even put his name down as a Presidencial candidate. He was actually looking forward to retirement.

Toni tracks the amazement of observers when an armed military coup interrupted the poll, and they went to the Presidential Palace, in the middle of a military media blackout, to discover that there was a mobilisation of people trying to prevent the coup non violently.